Eleven years after Angie Dickinson last nabbed a perp as Sgt. Pepper Anderson on Police Woman, she was back in the hunt in Prime Target (1989). This made-for-TV movie reunites her with Police Woman creator Robert L. Collins, who writes and directs. As veteran NYPD Sgt. Kelly Mulcahaney, she’s both predator and prey while investigating crooked cops who’ve been murdering women on the force, and Dickinson seems uncharacteristically peeved.
“So, why am I heading this task force?” she asks after being handed the assignment by Commissioner Peter Armetage (David Soul, who looks amusingly louche behind his giant desk). “Because you’re one of the highest-ranking female homicide detectives we’ve got,” he answers. “Because you’re on the women’s committee. Because I requested you, personally.” They have a history, of course, and that’s where the hardboiled dialogue begins:
Kelly: You know what they’re gonna say about this. About us. Again.
Peter: Kelly, Kelly, Kelly. My friend.
Kelly: Not anymore, I’m not.
Peter: How’s Judge What’s-His-Name?
Kelly: How’s your wife?
Peter: God, you’re tough. Why are you so tough, huh?
PRime target (1989)
On her way out she tells him, “Oh, and by the way, happy birthday, Peter. I’d have brought you a present except” — she shrugs — “what do you give someone who’s had everybody?” We trust that Kelly’s formidable, but Dickinson appears bored in another of her tough-broad-in-a-man’s-world roles. She dutifully pauses after each barb lands, her mind possibly wandering to that night’s dinner plans.
As the body count multiplies, so does Mulcahaney’s work. First, Officer Juanita Esquivel (Patrice Cahmi) is killed in a bombing. Then Pilar Sandoval (Wanda De Jesus), an undercover cop and friend of Juanita’s who helped Mulcahaney with the case earlier in the day, is murdered during a vice bust gone wrong. Complicating matters, Esquivel was mixed up in a contentious lawsuit against the NYPD for its hiring practices, and Sandoval lived a semi-secret life of luxury that suggests she was on the take.
“Seventeen years I’ve been on this job, Carl,” Kelly vents to her friend and dependable colleague, Det. Fahey (Mills Watson). “Why do we do it? The violence, the anger, the stench and the dying. Sometimes I can’t find a meaning in it. Sometimes it just… Maybe I’m just tired. Maybe I’ve been on this job too long.”
“Well, nobody promised us meaning, Kelly,” he replies. “We do the job because it’s what it takes and it’s what we do.” It’s what Mulcahaney’s father, Earl (Charles Durning, a hammy treat in a special guest star turn), did too, until his career was derailed by overly aggressive internal affairs officers. Bitter memories of his plight spur Kelly to angrily refuse when Peter and IA’s Det. Brown (Yaphet Kotto) ask her to wear a wire.
“Listen, the whole unit is dirty, we know it, we’ve known it for a long time,” Brown tells her. It’s not until she’s abducted outside the station house in broad daylight by goons in Groucho glasses that Kelly reevaluates her stance. “You’re getting into things you shouldn’t,” they comically warn her before issuing a plethora of sinister threats. “You know, you don’t wanna know what you don’t wanna know, Mulcahaney. You understand?”
After her car is summarily bombed, Carl finds her practicing at the shooting range. Calling her Dirty Harriet, he asks if she plans on fighting an army. “A squad, maybe,” she replies grimly as she reloads. She’s receiving the same harassing hangup calls that nearly drove Esquivel to quit, but the teleplay (based on a novel by Lillian O’Donnell) still takes time now and then to focus on what’s important—her sexual desirability.
“You wearing body armor is like wrapping a candy bar in a lead pipe,” the portly Carl laments as he plots to keep her safe. Kelly is given a standard-issue personal life—besides her lonely, ailing father and senile, hospitalized mother, there’s a judge boyfriend (Joseph Bologna, alternately shirtless and vamping in a bathrobe). In detective films the vulnerable parents or love interest are often introduced so they can be menaced by the villain. Prime Target doesn’t bother tossing in that suspense. Even the stalking of Kelly herself is half-hearted at best.
In a thriller without many thrills, we’re treated mostly to colorful dialogue and closeups of Dickinson’s architecturally impressive ’80s hair. “Everything ain’t black and white, Kelly. Everyone’s got something ain’t exactly kosher. Valuable human beings, all of us. Sometimes, you gotta look the other way,” a character tells at her at a diner, before recommending the knishes. When another officer is killed and the net begins to tighten around the suspects, one betrays a severely Catholic, or Scooby-Doo, desire to confess.
“Nobody starts out dirty,” he begins, and you wait (and wait) for his soliloquy to go anywhere. It doesn’t. As the pieces of the puzzle fall into place, you realize the meandering plot bordered on the nonexistent. Still, there are worse ways to pass 90 minutes than in the company of Dickinson, Watson, Durning and Kotto. And, if you’re feeling extra nostalgic afterward, Police Woman is currently streaming on Tubi.
Streaming and DVD availability
Prime Target is available on DVD and streams can be rented or purchased on Amazon. Full-length copies are often shared on YouTube as well.
Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.
… But wait, there’s more!
While trying to find an interesting tidbit about the real-life friendship between Charles Durning and Angie Dickinson, I mostly came up empty. There were photos of the two at the dedication of his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and when he was awarded the National Order of the Legion of Honor, both circa 2008, but my initial searches turned up no interviews in which they mentioned each other.
However, I thought Burt Reynolds (a veritable Kevin Bacon ’round these parts), who was fond of them both, might help bridge the gap. That’s where the cheeky ghost of Charles Nelson Reilly appeared to help us out. In this 2001 Observer piece, the legendary Reilly manages to name-drop Durning, Dickinson and Reynolds in one fell swoop, before turning his attention to Ella Fitzgerald.
I suggest reading the whole damn thing, but here’s the except in question.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
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